


Postscript

by Piyo13



Series: Checkmate [3]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-30
Updated: 2014-09-30
Packaged: 2018-02-17 03:52:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2295659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Piyo13/pseuds/Piyo13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>You sleep buried in a field of wheat</i>
  <br/>
  <i>it's neither the roses nor the tulips</i>
  <br/>
  <i>that watch over you from the rim of the ditch</i>
  <br/>
  <i>but rather a thousand red poppies...</i>
  <br/>
</p><p>Forty years, since the final defeat of the titans.<br/>
Forty years, since Armin Arlert's death.<br/>
Forty years since, and now Erwin's time has come.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Postscript

It's odd, Erwin thinks, how scent could, with a mere wisp,  evoke memories of the like he hadn't had in decades. Erwin draws breath, his mouth slightly ajar, breathing in the feel and taste of the air. It's unmistakable, really—the taste of forged titan-steel, metallic tang so sharp but so sweet, alluring like blood. The deadly power of those blades he hasn't forgotten; he doesn't think he could, nor the feel of one in his hand as it caught on the hardest flesh and tendons known to nature and rent them apart, like a knife through butter. But the smell is different, a whispered contrast to the heavy, obtuse weight in his hand. The smell is the one that comes from the swords when sharpened, the way the whetstones spark. That is, if the swords hadn't snapped and been lost. 

That was a smell Erwin had never expected to smell again. He breathes once more, concentrating on the air, because he knows his hearing is shot and his vision isn't much better. Slowly, other scents add themselves to the mix—horses, tack, campfires, wet tents, dew-stained grass—until Erwin can picture himself standing back at camp, forty years ago, full of life and love. Only one scent is missing, but try as he might, Erwin can't summon it. 

It is in that moment of quiet mourning that Erwin realizes he can't see. Unless—ah. Sometimes it truly is as simple as opening one's eyes. Which in and of itself is also odd, because Erwin has no distinct memories of ever closing his eyes to begin with, but—

And it is at this point that Erwin comes to a conclusion. Namely, that he must be dead (never, while alive, had he spared much thought about where the dead went—they died and that was that. Others had claimed the mind, the spirit moved on—whereto, no one could give an answer. Erwin supposes that now is as appropriate a time as any to begin his own speculation). Surrounding him, despite the plethora of smells, is not a camp from the Titan War, but rather a long, long field, unending as the ocean, but bathed in red—a red bright and intense and blood and lust, but furnished by millions of little flowers, rounded and splashed with black in the center.  _Poppies._  

He remembers, abruptly, the day that Hanji had come gallivanting into his office, spouting something or another about cracking and codes. Stories of a culture long gone and a time almost completely rotted away, now decipherable. At first they hadn't know what to make of them—the tales were too fantastical to be real, with the exception of titans' existence. But then someone had proposed a similarity between the beliefs of the bygone Wallists and the Wolf Texts, as they had come to be known, and—well. That had been that, making enough sense for the stories to be dismissed as fairytales. But Erwin still remembers the one. 

The one about souls left for all eternity in a field of poppies. 

What had it been? The souls of those who had done neither too good nor too bad? Something along those lines. Erwin breathes deeply, noticing with a pang that the scents of the Titan War are mixing, meshing, blending and being swept away by the smell not of poppies but of rich, heady earth. Erwin closes his eyes again, plunging himself into a darkness as intense as, he supposes, death. 

By increments, Erwin becomes more and more aware of his body (if that's even what it can be called—he's not entirely sure how physical terms apply in a place that is supposed to only house his soul). His arm, whose phantom pains hadn't calmed even after forty years, is there, and Erwin takes a moment of quiet revelation to move it and see fingers reacting instead of invisible shadows. It's nice.

Eventually, Erwin stands up—the field continues outward until it meets a uniformly dusky sky, a sunset spawning from everywhere and nowhere all at once. He drinks in the sight. It's been several years since Erwin's been able to see anything with clarity, let alone the edges of twilight. Once sated—though he doubts he can ever  _truly_ be—Erwin begins to walk.

He doesn't know where he's going, or why, but the motion feels right to him, and so he continues on, invariable landscape be damned (it feels like freedom).

The field should be empty, by all logic—Erwin has lost track of how far he's wandered, or how long, the plants merely bending around his feet but springing back up the second he's passed (he leaves behind no trail—wonders, for a moment, hopes, for another, that his life, his  _existence_ , left more a mark than he does now) (it's a silly fear—he was Commander Erwin Smith, and that is a name that had gone down in history long before Erwin himself ceased to be)—and so when a figure appears on the horizon, moving with preternatural speed that sets Erwin's hair on edge, Erwin finally ceases movement, holding himself still and tense more through thought than any muscle. 

The smell hits him before anything else, before even the figure has ceased to be a blur. It's been forty years, but Erwin still remembers—he can still recall—but it can't—

"Armin?" he whispers, his voice sounding too loud in the whispering-wind silence of the poppy field. 

The figure materializes, and it's him, it's Armin. He's glowing softly, the gold of his hair shimmering and his eyes reflecting the crepuscular sky, and he's smiling softly and his eyes are faintly scrunched and there's a wrinkle in his nose and his smile broadens and—

Erwin doesn't recall moving, and maybe he didn't, maybe souls don't do that, because it doesn't matter it doesn't matter Armin's safe between his arms  _Armin is with him Armin Armin Armin—_

"Hello, Erwin." 

Erwin thinks he could cry.

Maybe he does. "Armin? I—how?"

"I've missed you so much," Armin whispers, his voice hitching as his arms tighten around Erwin, and no, that's final, Erwin's never letting Armin go, never again. 

"Me, too," Erwin replies, pulling Armin closer, burying his nose in his hair, trying desperately to make up for as many lost years as he can. 

After a few minutes, or an eternity, Armin slackens his hold and slowly, reluctantly, Erwin does the same, leaving on hand to rest on Armin's forearm as a reminder— _Armin is here._ Armin looks up at Erwin, scrutinizing him, and Erwin can do nothing but stare (because it's Armin,  _his Armin_ , and he knows he will never get tired of the sight). Armin's hand rises and comes to rest against Erwin's cheek, and Erwin half-closes his eyes, leaning into the hand. 

Armin moves, and Erwin opens his eyes, only to close them again as Armin's lips meet his. 

The kiss is everything Erwin remembered, and more. 

"I love you," he breathes out. He can feel Armin smile. 

"I love you, too. So much," Armin replies tenderly, finally pulling away.

He takes a few steps away, gazing out at the horizon. Erwin watches, content to admire (he lets his fear of Armin leaving slip away—Armin loves him, loves him still). Then Armin turns to face him, eyes soft. 

"Come on. We have eternity together, now," Armin says, extending a hand behind him, to Erwin. 

Erwin doesn't think he's ever been so happy to comply with an order.

"Yes," he says, and takes Armin's hand. Armin's fingers fit perfectly with his, and Erwin almost become nostalgic over their old games of chess. Then he catches Armin's eye, and smiles, and Armin returns the smile, and Erwin is flooded by perfect, pure contentment.

 _All in due time_ , he thinks.  _We have eternity, after all._

**Author's Note:**

> Been a long time coming, this. I wanted to finish the series on a more happy note. Hopefully this makes up for Addendum :')
> 
> Note; the field of poppies is in reference to the underworld myth of the Greeks and Romans, where the dead who did nothing good and nothing bad ended up in an eternal field of poppies. (EDIT: so google says fields of asphodel, whatever, I grew up thinking fields of poppies). And also [this song,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoYw0LHEWLM) which I think Armin could easily find himself in.
> 
>  
> 
> ~~Of course if you WANT to make it sad you could presume this is all part of Erwin's dying imagination. But I never said anything :)~~


End file.
